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THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY

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By ANNA JENNESS-MILLER.

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Triune Development

Triune Development Series

TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT.

The Road to Self-mastery.

TRIUNE MOVEMENTS.

Exercises of Rhythm and Joy.

Illustrated with photographs, diagrams and original musical
themes, by Bertram Shapleigh

TRIUNE MOTHERHOOD.

Its Pains and Pleasures.

Its Ethical Possibilities.

Its Spiritual Responsibilities.

THE BEAUTIFUL STORY OF GOD'S HUMAN GARDEN.
As mother should tell it to her girls.

TRIUNE BRIEFLETS.

The Quarterly Lesson of the Triune Order.

Triune Development

The Road to Self-Mastery

By

ANNA JENNESS-MILLER

TOTOO

New York City
The Triune Order

1909

V

Copyright, 1909
By Anna Jenness-Miller

CLA251539

Printed by William Green, New York City

Everything that man undertakes, whether by
action, word, or in whatsoever way, ought to spring
from a union of all his faculties.— Goethe.

There is but one temple in the universe and
that is the body of man. — Noyaus.

This age needs to be awakened to a positive
and vital faith in the living reality and all-em-
bracing presence of an invisible spiritual kingdom
of deific life, wisdom and goodness, with which
man is inwardly and vitally related, and may
become consciously identified in fellowship of life
and action. — Dewey.

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TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

The Road to Self-Mastery Is a Rugged Climb, Beset with the
Temptations of Illusion and the Dangers of Ignorance. At Its
Summit, Struggle Merges Into the Joy of Spiritual Sovereignty
Over Mind, and Mental Dominion Over Body.

The true joy of living is to feel all one's organs and
faculties keyed to exuberant vitality. Ill health is both
a physical and spiritual handicap. No one knows this
better than those who have experienced it. To unfold
harmoniously, spirit needs sound and symmetrical
housing. Creative Wisdom provides everything neces-
sary for this in the wide domain of Nature; but re-
quires man to transmute crude potentialities into the
higher potencies for himself.

Not much that is worth having comes by inspira-
tion. Work is the key that unlocks the storehouse of
personal power. Standing "amid the eternal ways" it
is our privilege to lay hold upon ever-widening oppor-
tunities for noble development. On this plane of
activity adjustment of spirit to its instrument of ex-
pression, the body, is the all-important lesson. Some
never learn it, and in consequence drag out a miserable
existence. Others, like myself, struggle into co-opera-
tion with constructive principles through suffering.

Twenty years ago I was ignorant of the most
elementary facts of vital chemistry. My health, never
good at best, failed entirely because I did not know how

9

10 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

to conserve it. Invalidism was not a cheerful outlook
for one just at the threshold of married life. Fortun-
ately, however, I had youth and a buoyant temperament.
Still more to the point, I was determined to get well.
This led me to study the laws of health for myself.

Upon Nature's principle that the energy of any
living organism takes a downward course which cul-
minates in general deterioration, unless kept at its
legitimate work of up-building, I based a theory of
physical re-construction which stood me in good stead
when put to the test. To begin with, I discarded fash-
ion's paraphernalia for a simple and natural style of
dress, taking for granted that bodily organs must have
freedom to function normally. My next step was daily
practice of physical exercises. Some of these I learned
at a school of oratory. Others, especially adapted to
my needs, were the result of experimenting for myself.

The more I studied Nature's Laws, the more con-
vinced was I that intelligent work with nerves and
muscles generates health in vital organs. Faith in-
creased as strength returned. Day by day I said
joyfully, "I am getting better. I am going to be well.
I am better — there is no doubt about it." I did not
then know the vitalizing force of such reiteration, nor
understand the principles by which indwelling certainty
stimulates physiological processes.

Out of sheer gratitude for ultimate restoration to
health, I told occasional sufferers who came my way
of the means with which I had consciously worked.

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 11

I could not tell them of the more fundamental life-
giving powers unconsciously evoked, for I was still as
ignorant of the Laws of Subjective Mind as I had be-
fore been of Organic Law.

Just how the fact of my self-healing spread in the
first instance I never quite understood. But women began
to gather from near and far5 to hear more of the "new
gospel of health." My home in Washington was be-
sieged in season and out, like a public institution. With
ever-increasing enthusiasm for helping those who were
in the unfortunate plight that I had been, without money
or price I taught the exercises, and explained the
essential features of the garments that I wore. These
were in striking contrast to fashion's deformities, for
that was the day of heavy skirts and many waist-bands,
of the curved corset-front, the big bustle, the tie-back,
and skin-tight sleeves so fitted at the shoulder that one
must put on her hat before her bodice, as it was almost
impossible to raise the arms to do so afterward.

Women's organizations began to invite me to
address them, and the newspapers took notice. "Here
is a novelty worth exploiting," they said. And exploit
it they did, so effectively as to launch me upon the
professional platform work of Dress Improvement and
Physical Culture to which I gave ten years of continu-
ous effort.

From letters received during that time, and
since, more than in any other way, have I been able to
measure what was accomplished. While it is reasonable

12 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

to suppose that some out of tens of thousands of
communications from women of as many different
temperaments were written for effect, by far the larger
number ring true in their statement of benefit received.
But what makes such expressions of gratitude more
sacred and personal than all the rest, is the dominant
note of faith that there need be no reserve, in pouring
out the innermost sufferings of soul as well as body,
to me.

Between the written lines of too many of these
communications, alas! are the unwritten records of
heart struggles, of failure, injustice and wrong
endured to the breaking-point. Or the still more tragic
confession of moral and spiritual delinquencies, which
irresistibly report in bodily condition, as Nature with
inexorable justice squares her accounts with broken
laws.

In the perspective of time, I see that my work was
from the first as much psychological as physiological.
Year in and year out, from the platform and in writing, I
taught that health is not a matter of building from the
outside, a putting-on, but is instead of inner unfolding.
If I laid stress upon physical exercise as a means for
relaxing nerve tension and increasing muscular fibre, I
also taught that well-rounded development demands bal-
anced interaction of the powers of mind as well as body.

Thus by a species of intuitive co-ordination be-
tween the mental and physical, I kept myself en rapport
with the stored vitality of Nature, and inspired others

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 13

to draw vigor from the same inexhaustible source. In
no other way could I have endured the wearing irreg-
ularities of travel, the constant exposure to colds in
draughty public buildings, and the general drain upon
strength incidental to strenuous one-day-in-a-place
lecture work for so many years. Neither would the
effect of my teaching have been the same.

Full awakening to the rationale of Triune Develop-
ment, or Unity of Spirit, Mind and Body, came
when I was no longer in public work. It was, loosely
speaking, the net result of practical experience, plus an
accumulation of impressions which had been growing
in force from day to day. As long as I was in the thick
of a profession in which all effort converged to a single
focus, I had no time to probe for the inner significance
of my own unfolding thought, to say nothing about
investigating the basic principles of the different schools
of metaphysical belief which were challenging public
attention in the name of a Higher Science of Life.

When personal reasons made it expedient for me
to withdraw from public work, opportunity came to put
the accretion of years to rights for comparison with the
general progress. Without prejudice, with an open and
candid mind, I read the writings of advanced thinkers,
and listened to what they had to say, ready and eager
for still further understanding of how to achieve the
most practical all-around development.

And here I use the word practical in its literal
meaning, because I know that whatever one's mental

14 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

appreciation of an eloquently clothed ideal, the vital
question for any true teacher must always be — Can
this inspiring abstraction be transmuted into an effect-
ive instrument of helpfulness to the many? Will it
meet the every-day needs of men and women on life's
level ? Is it a full-orbed sun, of a radiance to brighten
the experiences of the struggling millions, or but a
nebulous reflection of splendid luminaries like those of
the milky way, so far distant that none but the advanced
student, straining his gaze through the most powerful
telescope, can grasp the stupendous truth of it? In
other words, is it a vision of the higher reaches only,
or a get-right-down-to-work principle with the vital
potency to change and improve the hard facts of the
here and now, of the average man's undevelopment ?

I have always had the faculty for looking at both
sides of a question, and rarely take a far-reaching step
without considering what opposes it in the opposite
direction. This tendency often acts as a check upon
enthusiasm which would otherwise carry me beyond
the point of equilibrium. It was what kept my Dress
Improvement and Physical Culture work within the
conservative limits that made it acceptable to so many
who would have fled from any other known system of
Dress Reform — for that was what people persisted in
calling it in spite of my protests. And it was the same
trend of mind that made my investigation of strictly
metaphysical postulates a helpful balancing of pros
and cons, which quickened thought and stimulated

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 15

intuition, without interfering with my liberty to think
for myself.

With due respect for the opinions of those who cut
loose from belief in the reality of man's physical nature
I am less prepared to take such an extreme stand
after giving the subject a good deal of thought, than
before. The more I study human unfolding, the more
convinced am I that every Divine command to go for-
ward into larger understanding has a reason attached
to it within the lines and limits of Natural Law.

That the Real Man is, in the last analysis, Spiritual
needs no argument. Upon the other hand, it takes but
a walk through the streets of any big city, where every
stratum of emerging consciousness is in evidence, to
realize that the larger numbers are still deep in conflict
with material conditions. It could not be otherwise in a
world in process of making. This is no cause for dis-
couragement, and no argument against man's ultimate
high destiny; but it is a good practical reason for keep-
ing within the established order, which has unerr-
ingly brought humanity to its present place on the
upward road.

The race achieves maturity of powers by the slow,
selective work of the centuries. By eliminating this
to-day, and that to-morrow; discarding theories that
have served their purpose, and are no longer of use to
the general upbuilding, while shoring up others,
so to speak, that may still be turned to good account
for a time. In this way the noble edifice of human

16 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

progress rises against a background of outgrown
traditions and beliefs, as the present Treasury at
Washington has risen into the solid granite a little at a
time, every crumbling block and column of the original
structure replaced by the more enduring stone.

In its larger aspect, life is a struggle to gain pro-
portion between spiritual perception, moral character
and physical health — a Triune Development. The
best man among us is the one whose three-fold nature
maintains the most perfect equipoise in the practical
affairs of life. These are essentially carried on at a
level where all sorts and kinds of degenerating tenden-
cies are at work to drag us down.

The beautiful theory, so often put forward, that
all the heaven-born forces of the Universe conspire
together to elevate man, is sanctioned by neither
science nor the proven facts of life. The plain truth of
it is, that Creative Wisdom placed man on this planet
to work out his own spiritual unfolding, through the
collective experience of flesh and sense. He was given
the crude implements of his task, with time and the laws
to improve them ; but nothing more. In other words,
it has always been Nature's way to help those upward
who help themselves; and to pull those down who do
not.

The most exalted theories that run athwart this
co-operative principle of the higher development are
impotent to change its inexorable justice and majesty.
Neither did Creative Intent make Laws so loosely

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 17

that man must needs slip the cables of some, in order to
get a better hold upon others, in the upward climb.
The Law of human unfolding was, is and always will
be the same — a three-fold organic, mental and spiritual
unity. For which reason, those who most stoutly deny
the reality of physical nature, in effort to exalt spirit,
have never been able to make good in a thoroughgoing
way.

To put it more to the point — Where is the meta-
physician of any school who has conquered such
bodily imperatives as the need for rest, sleep, food,
water, heat, clothing and elimination of waste products
from the system through the natural channels ? Before
such an elemental catastrophe as a cyclone or earth-
quake the believer in the power of mind to control
matter stands helpless as any other unfortunate.
Trapped in a burning building or sinking ship, he suffers
fatal consequences. Accidents crush and mangle his
flesh and bones without regard to his theories. The
bullet of an assassin reaches his heart as readily as it
does that of another of different faith. The deadly
toadstool, when eaten by mistake for the toothsome
mushroom, lays him as low as though the thought of
poison had been uppermost in the mind. He is just as
dependent upon the light of the sun, the ozone of the
air, seed-time and harvest as any other. In short, in all
the vital essentials of mere animal existence there is
little appreciable difference between men of the widest
mental and spiritual divergence.

18 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

To claim, as an occasional one does, that they are
too busy with loftier phases of mental control to waste
time in overcoming such trivialities as these, is to beg
the question. To assert that a little more faith is
the only thing wanting to make spirit master over
every condition of life and death proves nothing.
To say, as still others do, that the unreality of matter,
and similar postulates, have a different meaning from
what the uninitiated suppose, is to imply that the
function of language is to obscure, and not to make
thought clear.

Why should truth ever be stated in any but the
plainest terms ? The better a vital theory is understood,
the better it serves its purpose. Mysticism, which was
the breath of religion and the power of the priesthood
in other ages, has no place in the broad light of a Twen-
tieth Century day. Let us throw open every door that
will make the meaning and purpose of man's existence
clearer. Self-mastery is a matter of self-understanding
as well as self-control. It can only be gained through
experience and the discipline which comes from learn-
ing how to handle the Divinely ordained tools of spiri-
tual unfolding.

In the Infinite System of Nature, some laws were
left for man to bring under control by the vitalizing
touch of spirit. Others were placed outside the orbit
of human volition. That the vital chemistry of his be-
lief renders a consistent metaphysician immune to
much that would affect the ordinary man is not to be

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 19

doubted. He would stand a good chance of passing
scathless through a plague that swept others off by
hundreds, especially those weakened by fear. Belief
in health is the most effective of tonics. Sound tissue
does not furnish the right soil for development of
deadly microbes. And yet, few sensible people would
be willing to substitute denial of the reality of Asiatic
cholera, Bubonic plague, leprosy, yellow fever, small-
pox, diphtheria, pneumonia and tuberculosis for the
scientific knowledge and sanitary vigilance which have
done, and are doing, so much to banish these dread
specters.

The wise man does not attempt to shut his eyes to
the self-evident truth that Organic Law works at its
highest potentiality under the inspiration of Spirit; but
finds it a reason for striking physical roots deeper into
spiritual soil. He works with fuller measure of joyous
and joy -giving faith than ever before, because he sees
that the charter of true happiness is right use of all the
God-given materials at command.

It does not take allegiance to any fixed system of
Higher Thought to realize that a resistless mental
current is formed, and still forming far and wide, which
carries visible proof of the transfiguring power of
invisible spirit in the affairs of men. Intelligent in-
vestigators the world over are concerning themselves
more with ways and means to gain command of self in
the Here and Now, than with salvation in some future
state. They are just awakening to the significant truth

20 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

that there is, and can be, no eternity but the present;
that every to-morrow of Life Everlasting is the epitome
of the experiences and gains of to-days.

There is nothing one-sided or discouraging about
human development. It is unhurried, unceasing, self-
expanding. It is forever upward and onward. A
constant gaining of inspiration and supremacy of the
higher over the lower forces of nature, through balanced
interaction of all. A constant learning of how to
achieve greater personal effectiveness and larger help-
fulness to others.

The world is better to-day than it has ever been,
simply because greater numbers have more light upon
the path. It will be better a few years hence than it is
now. The Spirit of Brotherhood is increasing and
manifesting in new ways constantly. More people are
making an effort, in one way and another, to live un-
selfish lives. In proof of this, one has only to look at
the achievements of different organizations, to say
nothing of individuals, whose efforts in behalf of spiritual
and moral betterment are supplemented by material
help for the unfortunate, of the most substantial kind.

The royal possibilities in human nature shine out
in their true colors when men and women, widely
separated by race and class traditions, meet upon a
common ground to weave the Christ-spirit into a pat-
tern of helpfulness to their fellow beings. History
records no more beautiful expression of true love for
humanity, than that of the Christian Rector in New

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 21

York City, who stood with head bared and church
bells tolling, while a solemn Jewish procession passed
by, in sorrow for brothers massacred in a far-away land.

It matters little to the ordinary traveler under what
flag he sails the ocean, if the captain on the bridge be
an able mariner, who knows how to bring his ship
safely into port. The name of the religion, or system,
by which we embark upon the broad sea of pro-
gressive activity, is of even less consequence. What
concerns us is whether its teachings have the true
quality to pilot us through the rocks and shoals of human
weakness; through ignorance and temptations into the
harbor of noble self-understanding and self-mastery.

Some systems of belief attract us more sympathet-
ically than others. But this is not in itself argument
that one has more of truth than another. We are all
too prone to think convictions out-of- joint with the
eternal verities which differ from our own. We should
remember that no religious belief, or system of thought,
ever took hold of large numbers of mankind, that did
not have truth for its carrying power, however great its
attendant error. Even greater emphasis should be laid
upon the probability that what satisfies inner percep-
tions to-day, will be changed to-morrow by increased
understanding.

No age or nation, no sect or people ever had, or
will have, a monopoly of Truth. Truth is progressive.
It unfolds with men's own unfoldment. The seers and
prophets of the ages have been pathfinders for the

22 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

masses ; leaders who have scaled the heights of spiritual
insight, and flung the life-line of uplifting thought to
struggling pilgrims, along the slopes.

Triune Development is not presented to the public
as a system of original thought, nor in the desire to
make the golden grains of truth which it contains serve
as a background for personality, All so-called new
thought has rise in what has preceded it. Connection
between the new and old is always easy to find. Neither
should ability to apply truth in a helpful way be mis-
taken for power to originate it. There is not a teacher
whose work has progressive merit, but owes the stimulus
for it to the energy of ideas poured out by myriads of
minds through long periods of time. None of us can
lay claim to anything more than putting ideas forward
in a sincere and helpful way. When a new inspi-
ration comes to you or me, we may be sure that it has
come to others besides. That is the way Truth
travels. How often it happens that a brilliant
mental theory, or a principle of scientific or me-
chanical value, challenges public attention from
widely separated sources at the same time. Each
investigator is prepared to prove that his conclusions
were reached independently of the others. Thus, fed
from the depths of Infinite Mind, the life-stream of
progress flows from the four quarters of the world to
enrich a common humanity.

As a name to symbolize teaching devoted to the
Laws of man's three-fold growth, Triune Development

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 23

was selected as that most adequate. Spiritual and
mental control of physical nature can reasonably be
slated in the terms of The Triune Order of Unfolding —
or Development of Body, Mind and Spirit in Unity.

Triune Development rests upon the authority of
Religion and Science, which make it plain that the
means for man's perpetual unfolding from lower to
higher was wrought into the bases of Laws eternal and
unchanging. What persisting energy of physical con-
struction and re-construction; what automatic func-
tional activity; what transforming of material elements
into living structure; what advance from undeveloped
to developed, from imperfect to perfect there was before
physical man became fitted to express thought and
spiritual volition. But in the hour that the higher
consciousness awoke in organic nature, the race entered
upon a new phase of unfolding from which there is no
retreat. Henceforth every faculty of spirit, mind and
body must co-operate for the fulness and power of a
balanced life.

It is not that the last man is not as much under the
Reign of Organic Law as the first one was; but that
the upward struggle has given him use of faculties
that were potential in the beginning. Man had to
perfect and learn how to use his physical instrument,
before he could reach out and lay hold upon the energies
of the spiritual plane. But proof is ample that he did
not lose his connection with Physical Law, nor de-
pendence upon it, in the process0

24 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

Here is the main point of difference between
strictly Metaphysical and Triune Belief. The former
cuts loose from physical moorings, in theory at least.
The latter holds that Evolution furnishes the best of
proof that man was intended to live consciously in every
part of himself, and with the definite purpose to make
physical vigor yield potency to spiritual unfolding, even
as the power of spirit increases physical control. In
other words, Triune Development teaches balanced
interaction of the higher spiritual and lower organic.
To put it even more clearly, in the ascending scale, the
faculties of body must obey the behest of spirit, as a
good soldier obeys his superior officers. Spirit is the
commanding general in Life's battle; mind and brain
are the executive staff; nerves, muscles and other
organs the fighting corps.

Man's equipment for life is the most perfect that
Creative Wisdom could have made. Nothing is want-
ing that serves humanity's higher needs. But the work
of molding crude material into enduring symmetry
must be carried on by man himself at the level of the
general understanding at all times, as the Law provides.
For this reason, Triune Development picks men and
women up where it finds them ; and works with means
adapted to the needs of the differing social strata.

Without attempt to force radiant visions from far-
off vistas of human progress, what are the facts of the
life going on around us? It is a practical question
that calls for a practical answer from those who

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 25

honestly wish to find the best way to help themselves
and others at the same time. The most inspiring theory
may prove but words in the face of a pressing need to
make good. This is not to say that every impulse for
the higher, every optimistic forecast, every glowing
word -picture does not add impetus to human uplift.
In ideals set to "the music of the spheres," in the far
reaches of imagination, men often find stimulus for
effort that would be well-nigh impossible otherwise.
And in so far as these give courage to push onward, and
wrest the "glorious liberty of the sons of God" from
rugged reality, they serve the manifest purpose of
Creative Intent.

But the situation is changed when faith and the
higher ideals are expected to do the work of Law.
Man's spiritual outlook changes and enlarges with his
growth. But the Law of it remains the same to-day
that it was yesterday, and will be through all the to-
morrows of Time. The biologist knows as certainly
that future races will come into the world and climb
to physical maturity by the established order of re-
production, growth and repair, as the astronomer
knows that the wandering comet will appear again in
obedience to the Law of Attraction, which holds every
sun, star and planet in the Sidereal System true to its
course.

Enough has been written to show that Triune
Development Teaching is based upon the belief that
full command of self comes by noble use of all the

26 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

functions and faculties of the three-fold nature. While
passing through this sphere of its unfolding, Spirit, the
Eternal Real, must of necessity co-operate with Or-
ganic Law for symmetry and proportion. Not to do so
is to run athwart Creative Wisdom, which designed the
physical body to serve man's needs in this world. That
the atoms used by Law for his housing here, disintegrate
and form new combinations when man passes on, is
no argument against the independent life principle in
each atom, and in all atoms, commonly classed in the
aggregate as matter.

A man is no more real than a tree. His is a different
kind of reality. The life of the tree is limited to matter,
so far as we know. Man, upon the contrary, there is
every reason to believe, belongs to an Eternal Order,
in which birth and re-birth into physical conditions,
that he may gain all earthly experience from primitive
to complex, is as it were but a single phase out of
millions of phases of spiritual activity and pro-
gression.

Triune Belief holds that Laws were designed to set
men free, not to handicap them. It accepts obedience
to their mandates as a constitutional necessity of human
unfolding. It regards suffering as the growing pains of
formative experience; passion as the brute energy of
undeveloped life forces at work in crude attempt to
use the tools provided in Nature's workshop for model-
ing life into a pattern of physical health and moral
beauty. It holds the struggle of virtue with vice, knowl-

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 27

edge with ignorance, health with disease, self-less-ness
with selfishness, to be the struggle of the divine spir-
itual with the human physical, in efforts to acquire
proportion and equipoise — the only true self-command.

Triune Development teaches that every organ, fac-
ulty and sense has its legitimate use when brought under
the orderly control of spirit. Self-mastery is a greater
achievement than self-repression. The religious re-
cluse does no wrong. His buried talent is safe. But his
is a negative virtue. The best servant of life is now as
in the days of the Master's teaching, the one who renders
an account of powers increased by right use.

The average man is forced to gain experience in
the open, beset by foes within and without. Any theory
of development which is not broad enough to apply to
the whole gamut of life, with all of its varying conditions
good, bad and indifferent, must fail of its purpose.
Upon every side, in high places and low, from palace
to hovel, is ignorance to be overcome. It is reflected in
a thousand and one different ways, out of reach of the
ordinary run of generalities for human improvement.
An everyday working belief must have the wearing
qualities of homespun. For moments of glorified
vision upon the mountain peaks of thought, there are
hours of pilgrimage in the valley of the commonplace,
where trials, temptations and> sordid duties test our
mettle and prove the value of our faith.

Books written from the heights exhilarate and
thrill us as does a noble symphony or a painted or sculp-

28 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

tured masterpiece. Ideals are beacon lights on the
shores of life — But they are not life itself.

For faithful portraiture of humanity we must go to
the newspapers ; and get into vital contact with men and
women upon the highways and in the by-ways of every-
day existence. We must know them for the suffering,
struggling, conquering souls that they are. In no other
way can we get perspective and realize the grandeur of
Almighty Wisdom in creating Man and the Law — Life
and a Principle for its unceasing upward Growth.

In the great Scheme of the Everlasting the physical
plays but a temporary part. But that part is an essen-
tial unit in the perfected whole. And the Law of it is as
divine as what follows upon the spiritual plane. All
Law is symmetrical and logical in sequence. This is
the three-fold plane of human unfolding, and attempt to
live the life of pure spirit here is contrary to the Law of
Triple-Unity governing this sphere of activity. It
leads irresistibly to the cloister and cell, to solitude and
meditation away from the haunts of men; out of touch
with the world's busy interests, and largely out of
sympathy with the practical needs of its struggling
millions.

It is just as important to recognize and provide
for the human demands of our Triune Natures, as for
the spiritual. What is real life but understanding
and sympathy, unselfishness and helpfulness toward
others, and joy within ourselves for every good gift of
body, as well as spirit ? To truly live is to love life and

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 29

see beauty in every phase of it: from primitive instincts
for the better in the least developed of mankind, to the
finer psychological perceptions of those older in the
struggle and more matured by longer experience.

To be gloriously human — and what else should we
wish to be in human form ? — is to be rounded and self-
mastered in every vital organ and function. To be
self-mastered is to know and reverence and keep the
Laws of our Triune Growth. In other words, to be
humanly-spiritual — the only proportioned spirituality
possible in this life in physical organism — one must hold
fast to belief in the good and true in everything ; know-
ing that nothing is that is not of Divine Origin and
according to the Laws of Creative Wisdom from the
beginning.

Without exaggeration, ours can be called the age of
specialists for self-improvement and the regeneration of
others. In whatever direction we turn the man with a
theory is there. It may be spiritual or physical — but
a "cure-all" it is sure to be, in either case.

Spiritual denial of the reality of the material uni-
verse, and everything in it, meets a counter claim that
the only thing man knows or can know, is what he per-
ceives with his senses. Therefore the only rational
belief must be making the most of everything on earth.
One man finds a certain school of physical development
the royal road to health here, and the way to acquire
virtue that will insure happiness hereafter. Another
is certain that deep breathing alone gives command of

30 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

all the forces of growth within and without; while a
third is profoundly convinced that the whole gospel of
true living can be summed up in — "As a man thinketh,
so is he." One says the mainspring of righteous energy
is eating the right foods. The next man is equally con-
vinced that it is not the kind of food we eat, but the way
we eat it that counts.

The list is too long to follow out. It runs the
whole length of human experience, and presents diffi-
culties greater than those of a Chinese puzzle to
one who is truly seeking light upon the path. It is
only when all these theories are brought to focus and
proportion within the Law, that we see each one at its
own value, as a single nugget from out the inexhaustible
mine of Truth.

Triune Development takes its rise in recognition
of the essential unity of all tried and proven means for
growth under the Law. And makes no stumbling-
block of the scientific fact that matter is the ever-
changing and indestructible substance used by the
Life-Principle for all structural purposes — The rai-
ment, but not the man.

Triune Development is not a theory in the common
acceptation of the term. It works with what is self-
evident. Symmetrical human development can be
proven neither more nor less than balanced use of all
the forces of nature, by which "we are changed into
the same image from glory to glory." Triune Devel-
opment does not set up to analyze or define Life or

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 31

Spirit, or don the cap of wisdom in effort to prove
postulates for which no rationale can be found.

It does no good to claim that spirit can set all the
demands of nature at defiance upon this plane of its un-
folding. In comes the Law to prove the folly of it by
holding every man of us true to the logical sequence of
birth, automatic functional activity during growth to ma-
turity, decline to age, and the final change called death.

And if it could, what would be gained ? Does not
intelligent co-operation with Law offer broad enough
scope for human activity and growth into self -mastered
manhood to satisfy every longing? Where is the limit
set ? Organic Law can be proven adequate to the most
perfect health and radiant beauty of form and contour
— and all true beauty is a power for good. The most
profound mental grasp of the world's greatest thinkers
has never yet sounded the full capacity of the mechanism
of the human brain. While Spiritual Law, which
satisfies man's desire for everlastingness, at the same
time meets his every-day need for something greater
than himself, "in which to live and move and have his
being." As long as man desires nobler realizations —
and that will be as long as time endures — Spiritual
Law will keep at its work of weaving the supernal
pattern of it into the imperishable fibre of him.

But the mistake must not be made of sitting down
with hands folded, to let everything take its own course.
The Law, which is always operative, works with abso-
lute impartiality to help man up or down, as he decrees.

32 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

It is true that nature carries on such automatic phys-
iological processes as breathing, the heart's action,
digestion, secretion, and other functional activities,
independent of man's help. But always at a lower
potentiality without than with his co-operation. The
rationale of the higher development, physical, mental
and spiritual, is first, last and forever Co-operation with
the Law. And it is with this underlying principle of
the higher growth that Triune Development works.

The object of the Triune Order of Teaching is to
bring those who wish to understand the best means
for self-development, and helping others, into touch,
and in general to stimulate interest in sound and sane
methods of progress. Triune Development aims to
teach all who are interested how to gain the fulness and
power of the balanced life, at the level of their own un-
derstanding and needs. For we must not forget the
wide differences in human nature; or take it for granted
that what helps one man is going to turn all others out
in the same mold, without regard to different degrees
of intellectual grasp.

Proportion is one thing to the man on the lower
stratum of the human struggle ; another to the one fur-
ther up. But the Law which reaches from Infinite to
Infinite is inclusive enough to make men proportioned
and self-mastered with such material as each has
at command — and still further to provide the true
bond of human sympathy, within which all may work
together for the common good.

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 33

Before stating the general purposes of the Triune
Order, and the practical work to be taken in hand by
members and students, at greater length, emphasis
must be laid upon cultivation of an unprejudiced and
tolerant mind as the most fundamental principle of its
teaching. Those ready for any system will accept it of
their own free will when it is presented in a clear and
convincing way. Effort to make others do so by
dogmatism and argument is opposed to the true spirit
of liberty.

No one with the most elemental sense of individual
rights would attempt to bind another and drag him in
a direction in which he did not wish to go. Yet this is
just what we do with spirit, when we seek to coerce
belief. Any of us may sow seed from our own garden
broadcast, but the flowering must be left to the higher
law of growth. Perfect freedom is essential to perfect
development. Through the ages, men have fought
for liberty of thought and action, so deeply is the justice
of it wrought into human consciousness. How much
more inviolate should be held man's right to freedom of
spirit!

Triune Teaching first takes up the physical plane
of Tri-Unity, because that is the way Nature leads.
Organic Law must have begun the work of getting man
ready for spiritual unfolding upon this plane, at a point
far below the most savage state of life to be found any-
where to-day. It is claimed by those who ought to know
that no primitive or barbaric race has ever been dis-

34 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

covered that did not have some kind of instinctive
spiritual belief, however crude.

But if Evolution be true, as we believe, there must
have been long periods of time before a single cell —
in which the race began life on earth — had climbed to
the stature of man, when there could have been no
evidence whatever of his ultimate high destiny. Just
as the single cell in which the human infant begins life
to-day is indistinguishable from that of any other
animal — all having the same unformed protoplasm for
a starting-point, and working out their own destiny
according to the pattern furnished by Creative Energy,
for each, from the beginning.

And afterward, in the dim dawn of spiritual con-
sciousness, the lower forces of nature so far outstripped
the higher that man was regarded as a physical rather
than a spiritual being; whose real mission on earth was
saving his soul for a heaven of do-nothingness forever
afterward — a state so opposed to the whole Divine
Scheme of revealed life and activity that the wonder is
Religion even endorsed it.

Man's Triple-Unity, as Spirit, Mind and Body, is
just beginning to be understood — and, I regret to say,
misunderstood as well. Man, as spirit, a spark from
the Eternal forced by the Laws of its own spiritual
origin to perpetual unfolding; in full command of
mind and body, the instruments designed for contact
with other forms of life on earth, is a new being that we
are but little acquainted with. It is not strange that

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 35

in effort to explain him, some swing out of the angle of
vision in which he appears in true character as a Triune
Being, and present him one-sidedly as having neither
physical reality nor connection with what can be per-
ceived by the senses.

Triune Development is teaching for all, because
it works with all the laws of man's nature. It stands
for bodily improvement by every scientific as well as
spiritual means. The causes for sickness and suffering,
immorality and crime, poverty and wretchedness, are
grounded in undevelopment and ignorance. The
cure is not theory, but practical helpfulness. Generali-
zations will not make the world better. We may tell a
sick mother with a half dozen children dependent upon
her for support, not to worry, that worry kills; that a
serene mind and cheerful outlook are what she needs
for happiness. And such advice, which also contains a
precious grain of truth, will probably fall upon deaf ears.
Or she will cry out in her misery, as the hungry woman
did when the pious deacon prayed with her, exhorting
the Lord to send faith and patience and fortitude —
"And potatoes, Lord, potatoes!"

Potatoes are, figuratively, the practical side of
Triune Development. What mental healer would
accept the challenge to restore a starving man to robust
health, without the aid of nourishment? The Master
himself set the example of proportioned recognition of
Law when he said to the Pharisees, who condemned
the disciples for phicking and eating the corn on the

36 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

Sabbath, "Have ye not read so much as this, what
David did, when himself was an hungered, and they
which were with him; how he went into the house of
God, and did take and eat the showbread and gave
also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful
to eat but for the priests alone?"

With food, and other things symbolized by it, to
satisfy the demands of organic nature; and faith and
all beautiful ideals for spiritual hunger, we have the
perfect combination for starving humanity.

Triune Teaching begins with physical develop-
ment for the soundest of reasons. There are millions of
undeveloped, underfed, diseased and deformed men,
women and children in the world, whose physical suffer-
ings, moral delinquencies and other crimes can be traced
directly or indirectly to lack of proper exercise, right breath-
ing, wholesome food, sanitary surroundings and propor-
tioned activities . The need for healthy lung tissue, a sound
heart, strongmuscles, steady nerves, good blood and a clear
brain must claim first attention in any balanced system
of development. These are the bases of happy, useful
living day by day, and the only sane foundation upon
which to build hope for a future worth having.

What we are at any given time is the net result of
all we ever have been. Each one is responsible for the
house in which he lives. He can make it big and broad
and roomy, and filled with beautiful furnishings; or
narrow and cramped and overflowing with inharmoni-
ous and discordant things.

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 37

We hear this truth so often in one way or another,
that it would seem a platitude, were it not repeated to
give emphasis to the still more fundamental truth that,
while man in the last analysis is his own master-builder,
he is still dependent upon external nature for con-
structive materials to work with. And above all, upon
conditions, often outside his own control, for oppor-
tunity to use these in the best way. There are few
people, whatever their station in life, who have not
experienced such handicap first or last.

Enthusiasts are apt to let the glamor of the ultimate
blind them to the practical difficulties in the way of
attaining it. Triune Teaching, upon the contrary, aims
to get behind the things to be desired, into vital touch
with the things that are. To find causes which oper-
ate against man's ability to translate higher poten-
tialities into noble activities. And thus armed, to
aid in removing obstacles to progress by rational
means.

To return to the starting-point of Triune Develop-
ment. Ten years in the thick of a work that proved the
practical value of systematic exercise in health-building
suggested still further study and investigation along the
same lines. This in turn led to belief that muscular
movements having a mental and spiritual, as well as
physical, purpose can not only be made to serve as
physiological correctives of depressed nerve and muscu-
lar conditions, but as psychic inspiration to pure hap-
piness for its own sake — A force too little reckoned with

38 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

by most of those who are interested in ways and means
for improving humanity.

Triune Movements, as a system, were the outcome
of much study and experiment. Every Triune move-
ment has a motive. Interesting in itself, this is still
further enhanced by original musical interpretation,
the work of Mr. Bertram Shapleigh, of England; who,
born an American, achieved such instant success among
the highest critics and lovers of the art abroad that he
has since become, to all intents and purposes, a Euro-
pean composer.

Triune movements not only tone up muscles and
nerves, and through them the whole body, but what
is of equal consequence to balance and propor-
tion, satisfy the inborn love of joyous movement —
which is as old as humanity — Something lacking in
modern systems of hard and fast, by-the-rule physical
exercises, my own earlier system included. Not that
Triune movements do not conform to rules of the
highest. But these have rise in feeling as well as
movement ; in sentiment as well as science ; and express
the spontaneous delight of controlled freedom — if the
expression may be permitted — in use of the instru-
ments of motion and emotion; no less than satisfac-
tion that such freedom is the royal road to vital
health. In other words, Triune movements are,
broadly stated, more inclusive in purpose and con-
sequently better adapted to accomplish far-reaching
results than other systems of exercise based upon

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 39

different understanding of what constitutes symmet-
rical development.

In the limited space at command in this little book
whose purpose does not extend beyond giving a bird's-
eye view, as it were, of what is meant by Triune Devel-
opment, Triune Teaching and the Triune Order,
more space need not be devoted to this particular
branch of the work, basic though it be. In the book,
" Triune Movements," the underlying principles of
balanced bodily development are explained at length.
Diagrams and photographs show how to practice
the movements, with or without the accompanying
music, according to convenience.

The Measure of a Man's Personal Worth Lies in the Degree of
Unity Attained Between His Spiritual, Mental and Physical
Powers — His Value to the World in the Extent of His Activity
in Putting These to Service for the Common Good.

The general principles of the Triune Order of Devel-
opment furnish a broad platform. Those who accept
it in good earnest will find enough to do at home and
abroad to save them from asking, as so many do out of
sheer ennui, " Is life really worth living ?" The very spirit
of Triune Teaching is to make one's own life worth
living by helping others to make theirs so. The Triune
Order of Belief opposes, " Every man for himself and
the devil take the hindermost," with, Every man for
others as well as self, and the devil put out of
business.

Almost any worker of large experience among the
masses can recall instances of spontaneous giving from
pitiful little stores to others more wretched, under
stress of sympathy that would make many an one in
stately mansions blush for their own indifference to
what is going on at their doors, did they know the facts.
But seeing and knowing is just what such people too
often avoid — much as tender-hearted children run from
the sight of an animal in the hands of a cruel com-
panion, forgetting the tormented creature the moment
they are out of sound of its cries.

Few of us are monsters of selfishness and cruelty.
But self-centred and lacking in perspective of our true
relatedness to others we are. We strain and strive to

40

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 41

gain and get for self. And set up false gods whose re-
sounding emptiness becomes the burden of later years.
We rush after Mammon and his throng, with ears
closed to other needs and eyes for nothing but the
glitter and glamor of life; and act generally as if the
world and everything in it was made to satisfy our
desires; until the inevitable reaction comes — for the
exhilaration of selfishness never lasts. It is up to-day
and down to-morrow. Periods of great elation fol-
lowed by others of depression, for which the casual
observer sees no reason. But the reason is there. It is
all according to Law.

Life overflows with the reactions of disproportion.
They report on the physical plane in too many dif-
ferent ways to enumerate from "blues" to neuras-
thenia and melancholia — according to the measure of
each one's offense. Sometimes these reactions are the
result of indifference, but oftener of ignorance of the
Law that makes balanced activity and usefulness the
way of abiding peace and happiness; and stepping-
stones to health that is only symmetrical when it is of
mind and spirit as well as body.

What a glorious combination is worldly wealth
united to understanding and purpose to use it royally
for others, as the Ruler of the Universe uses his riches
for all alike! For we must not make the mistake of
thinking that the extremes of human condition as we
know them are proof that some men are better
beloved of the Father than others, for He works

42 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

impartially by Law alone. His Law of Love is also his
Law of Justice. Law moves in majestic sequence
which knows no distinctions from the savage in the
jungle to the monarch on the throne; from the sinner
to the saint; from ignorance personified by the lowest,
to knowledge incarnate in the highest. From Cause to
Effect, the Infinite always Works by Law.

In Nature the sun shines, the rain falls, the harvest
ripens for all alike. That one man appropriates more
of the harvest than another at present is not due to any
defect in the Law, but to the unequal stages of men's
development upon the line of march. The man at the
top has been at the bottom. The man at the bottom
will reach the top, and by the same road as those who
have gone before. There is no other. It is the Law.
Nature provides the same starting-point for all; the
same organic, mental and spiritual potentialities from
the foundation; the same principle of unfolding, with
equal freedom for all to choose between right use of
their forces of growth, or wrong.

At some points through the ages men make much
of their opportunities, and in such consonance with the
higher that they forge ahead rapidly. At others they
do not; and as a result slip backward into varying
degrees of degeneracy, according to the measure of each
one's neglect of the Law. These are the men of fine
intellect and good natural powers, from whom great
things are looked for, who disappoint expectation in
the end. They are the ones who seem to deliberately

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 43

choose the ways of darkness, instead of light. The
men of unequal balance, whose passions are given
free-rein to ride rough-shod over all finer instincts —
those who betray sacred trusts, preferring the gains of
dishonesty to better things won by nobler means. They
are the men who become embezzlers and defaulters,
forgers and swindlers, who rob widows and orphans,
wrong wives and children and ruin hearts and homes —
The men of disproportioned physical, mental and spir-
itual development.

When these men emerge again upon the upward
highway — as emerge they must when they have paid
their debt to the Law, "to the uttermost farthing,"
they will have a different understanding of "As a man
sows so shall he reap." Such are the Principles of
Growth for all.

The question then to be asked by each one in the
silence day by day, is — How are we sowing ? What will
the harvest be? Are we sowing in a way to reap the
joys of a balanced life, or the sorrows and disappoint-
ments of disproportion? If we are not sowing for the
higher, why not? What stands in the way? What
other realizations compare with the three-fold poise of
the self -mastered life ? What is better worth having ?

These are the questions that the Triune Order has
been founded to assist in answering at the level of human
nature's present needs. The answer reaches beyond the
individual to the Eternal Brotherhood. It is a question
of helpfulness, first to self, then one to another, man to

44 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

man, through the whole endless chain which links us
to the Everlasting Spiritual.

Triune Development recognizes all life as unde-
veloped and formative from lowest to highest. Dif-
ferent degrees of immorality, viciousness and crime are
the varied manifestations of different states of ignorance
and dis-organization. When we are wiser the treat-
ment will be corrective, not punitive.

Already there is some evidence pointing to the
time when sanatoria, gymnasia and homes provided
with all scientific and rational means for education of
hearts, hands and brain for productive work, will take
the place of reformatories, jails and prisons in dealing
with the morally infirm and unbalanced — a day when
the lower tendencies of human nature will no longer be
held in the leash of suppression, by misunderstanding
of the true character of that for which eradication by
three-fold development is the only cure.

Love as the Master taught it, and humane guid-
ance will be the recognized road along which to lead
men to self-mastery and the power to "rise on stepping-
stones of their dead selves to higher things." In that
day we shall see that the legal execution of one or more
offenders does nothing for the advancement of Civil
Law and Order in the aggregate; and no longer rob
these unfortunates of the remnant of their experience
in the body, in the name of Christian civilization and
justice.

Not that all misdemeanors and crimes manifest in a

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 45

way to call down punishment at the hands of other men.
There are offenders in high places who escape the laws
of their country — but none who escape the Law of
Cause and Effect. From exalted positions of worldly
pomp and power, it is true that many who cannot
plead ignorance of the nature of their acts defy
the most sacred of unwritten laws, and arrogantly
trample upon obvious principles of equity year after
year, until it comes to be said, "There is one law for
the rich and powerful, and another for the poor and
obscure."

But back of such seeming, Everlasting Law Reigns.
However deep such an one may sink into moral
lethargy, and however brazen his injustice toward his
fellow-men may become for a time, he is still within the
psychic vibrations of a principle of unfolding more
inexorable and more just than any conceived of man.
Behind the bolts and bars of self-accusing conscience
moral leprosy stands revealed in the end to a judge
whose "Unclean! Unclean!" carries with it a sentence
that needs no interpretation to make clear that knowl-
edge brings added responsibilities; and power added
privileges for noble service, penalty for neglect of
which one must pay in full to the Law of Degeneracy.

It is the inevitable lesson awaiting all who waste
opportunities that understanding of the higher brings.
The most difficult, perhaps, of all the lessons of dis-
proportion man has to learn. For, unlike many
others of ignorance and undevelopment, neglect to

46 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

make righteous use of the functions of true living
has the effect to turn energy in the opposite direction
that would under other conditions, make for progress.
Thus forced downward by a law of his own choosing,
man can only recover lost ground under conditions
complicated and made harder by ever-increasing con-
sciousness of the value of what has been wilfully sacri-
ficed.

Any three-fold system of development must of
necessity take notice of the increase of functional dis-
turbances of purely mental origin in the present day.
These are the result of increasingly complex conditions
of modern methods of living. Some of the more recent
forms of nervous and mental troubles manifest in ways
that are the despair of the ordinary drug specialist.
Some known to be the outcome of mental states act
so much like a virulent poison in the blood, and have
such pronounced physical symptoms, that medical skill
reluctantly admits its inability to furnish the cure.

This class of diseases very generally yields to
Christian and Mental Faith Healing — and for the best
of reasons. It would take a very large prejudice indeed
to argue that it is better to treat an effect without
results, than a cause, with. It is because diseases are
as often of mind as body that we cannot lay down
hard and fast claims for a "cure-all" by one specific
school of healing or another.

There are forms of disease which are as logically
healed by faith and prayer as others are by the science

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 47

and skill of materia medica. Wise physicians are com-
ing to recognize this truth, and work with it to a greater
extent than is generally understood. The only wonder
is that any of us have been so long in admitting what is
self-evident — especially as we claim to draw inspiration
from a Master's teaching who made this principle
clear enough two thousand years ago.

Hold what opinion we may in general of the ex-
treme postulates of the different Higher Thought
Cults ; and of those of the venerable founder of Christian
Science in particular; the debt we owe to her and to
them, is real, and need not be grudgingly admitted.
Our attention has been called to a long-neglected truth
of the utmost importance, in a way so forcible that there
never can be any going back to the dense ignorance as
to the power of thought which prevailed before.

There is reason to believe that the early Christian
Fathers made constant use of spiritual control or
thought suggestion. The vitality of this principle no
doubt helped to cement the hold of the Church upon
the people of that day. It certainly explains the potency
of the sacred relic in this. It also adds another proof to
the many that thought must hereafter be reckoned
with as a positive force for good or evil in the affairs of
life. Whatever the source of it, no sincere person need
fear to incorporate a grain of proven truth into his
daily working belief. Rather should we fear that
narrowness of vision may prevent us from putting it to
proportioned use of the whole.

48 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

Triune Development never loses sight of the ob-
stacles to self-mastery and balanced progress that have
rise in the mind alone — for thought works in pulling
down as well as in building up. Many who should
lead in all good work by reason of superior advantages,
contribute nothing but stumbling blocks because of
their unfortunate mental attitude toward people and
things in general. This is a point of special emphasis,
for we are too apt to think that the best is always to
be found at the so-called top of the social strata, the
worst at the bottom. Yet a diamond-bedecked bodice
is even more apt to cover a heart filled with the canker
of envy, selfishness and similar unlovely traits, than the
rougher garb of poverty.

The reason is plain. It has nothing to do with the
sentimentality that concerns itself more with making
a highly colored picture of class distinction than with
truth — the kind that portrays all the poor as neces-
sarily virtuous and down-trodden, and all the rich
as heartless and arrogant. As if the inner struggles
of human growth were subject to modifications by the
mere length of the purse!

Such causes of disproportion as excess of worldly
pride, uncharitableness, lust of possession, petty power
and other degenerating conditions bred of idleness and
self-indulgence, are the exact opposite of those that
operate to produce mental and physical disproportion
in the lives of the poor and humble. But the latter,
which have their roots in hardship, overwork, self-

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 49

repression and lack of all joyous incentive to self-
betterment, are no less real. One who studies life
without prejudice, with an open mind, seeking truth for
its own sake, in the desire to contribute to the gen-
eral uplift, will find organic disturbances which can only
be cured by the most practical means.

There are troubles that need nothing but alterna-
tions of rest and proportioned exercise in the blessed
sunshine and fresh air, with plenty of pure water, good
food and a mind free from worriment — the troubles
found in dark, crowded, ill-ventilated quarters, where
every reasonable condition is wanting for sound body
and brain building. And there are the nerve racking
anxieties of poverty, that stalking specter whose grim
presence casts its shadow over so many hearts and
homes. There are the mental agonies born of decep-
tion and betrayal at the hands of beloved ones and
trusted — a species of misery as likely to be found in the
abode of wealth as in the hovel of want. There are
the lonely and misunderstood in all walks of life, whose
depression of spirit is due to heart-hunger and longing
for kindness and vital sympathy. There are the sor-
rows of loss of too many kinds to enumerate; and the
dull monotony of lives that never know the tonic of joy
from year's end to year's end. There are the troubles of
moral disproportion, which must be isolated and treated
as dangerous — diseases of violence that can only be
eradicated by the divinest of means. There are heart-
aches caused by varying forms of degeneracy which

50 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

involve whole families, and frequently drag honored
names in the dust.

The list is a long one. The troubles are as manifold
as the conditions governing life itself. And the cure
cannot be found in theories and generalities, however
inspiring in themselves. Certain as it is " that all things
work together for good" in the Infinite, this exalted
truth will not do duty for your neglect or mine in failing
to translate inner perception into self-improvement and
helpfulness to others.

Nor can the ordinary method of giving be called
true helpfulness. In a Christian community nothing
takes the place of warm human sympathy and the
hearty grasp of a hand. The world is not regenerated
by occasional spurts of pecuniary generosity from the
rich to the poor in the name of philanthropy. While it
sometimes happens that the man who gives another of
his dollars is the poorer of the two in all the funda-
mentals of enduring wealth. The man who truly gives
is the one who puts his shoulders to the wheel for a
man to man lifting of the load; at the same time that
he puts his hand in his pocket to help out of the
abundance of his material possessions.

Giving money is all right as far as it goes, if it be
done in brotherly spontaneity, to help another over a
rough place. Giving in a spirit of " this-relieves-my-
mind-of-all-further-responsibility "-charity, that tends
to pull down instead of building up the self-respect
which is man's best asset in life, is something to be

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 51

deplored. The charity that increases pauperism has
no place in the proportioned life of any nation. When
the Eternal Law of Justice is better understood and
in working among us, there will be no one wanting it.

The whole question is one of equity and balance.
Men all over the world are struggling with it in one way
or another. By all sorts of possible and impossible
means, they are trying to realize an ideal by themselves
too dimly comprehended as yet, to be worked out to
the full measure of love and law — the Love that
Christ taught, and the Law that holds the Universe and
everything in it in Equilibrium.

It is time that we put aside our childish faith in
the virtue of self-centred petitions to the Almighty
to do all kinds of work for us, that the whole Di-
vine Scheme of Law and Order provides the means
for us to do for ourselves. It is time for a nobler con-
cept of what our own contribution to life should be ;
for a broader understanding of the meaning of give and
take in the vital struggle for human advancement.

The Triune Order of Development is not an at-
tempt to set up a new religion as some may suppose
from the name. Its purpose is simply to unite those
who are interested in bettering life for themselves and
others into a bond of good fellowship and mutual
helpfulness, without regard to differences of religious
faith — or even lack of it; certainly without discrim-
inating against any on account of moral or physical ill-
health at the time of joining the Order.

52 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

Sowing the seed of desire for normal balance and
proportion in soil that is ready for it is quick work.
Bringing the seed to full fruitage requires the develop-
ing process of time. It sometimes takes years to rid a
swamp of noxious germs and reclaim it into a garden
spot. But nothing can be accomplished without a
beginning.

Some of us have made more headway toward self-
mastery in one direction, some in another. But none
of us have reached a point of perfection that makes it
safe to assume an "I am holier than thou" attitude
toward the humblest of our fellow-beings.

"Everything inferior is a higher in making, every-
thing hateful a coming beautiful, everything evil a
coming good," says an inspired German writer. Triune
principles too thoroughly accord with this sentiment for
the Triune Order to set up any arbitrary standard of
eligibility to its ranks, beyond a sincere determination
to put its teachings into practice.

The Triune Order was organized to do a practical
work in a practical way. It aims to add strength to
manifold effort already in progress for the betterment
of our common human nature. But principally along
lines that have received less attention than their im-
portance to the balanced life deserves.

Symmetrical growth of the whole man must be
both internal and external. The science of right living
cannot be summed up in spiritual convictions and moral
probity alone, fundamental as these are. There must

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 53

be equipoise of physical relationships — of eating and
drinking, talking and laughing, dancing and singing.
Amusement is as necessary to a perfect scheme of life
as work. Joyousness is as legitimately begotten of the
potency which lies at the heart of things as seriousness.

Life demands fresh readjustments constantly to
keep pace with inner unfolding; and many practical
innovations to give full play to ideals born of increas-
ing insight. Triune methods are corrective. They
build health and character by substituting more
attractive conditions and compelling interests for
those set aside. To replace the despondency of suffer-
ing with courage and hope, not only requires renewal
of faith in the Spiritual Energy, always and everywhere
at work for man's welfare and healing, but definite
training in the use of practical means for bringing in-
harmoniously related members into vital co-operation.

A barrier strong enough to protect the unfortunate
from the tyranny of gross appetites, must be so built as
to make what is sane and wholesome more attractive
by contrast. Children of vicious tendencies frequently
grow into noble maturity under right conditions.
Degeneracy oftener than not yields to changed en-
vironment, which holds the sufferer square to the
light of joyous and healthful activities. The life-springs
are irresistibly renewed under circumstances which
exhilarate mind and body. Upon the other hand, to
the treadmill of a routine of drudgery unrelieved by
contrasts and unbrightened by pleasure, may be

54 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

traced many cases of ill-health, suicide and varying
degrees of crime, among those who were normal enough
at the start.

Triune Development holds that every human being
has a right to life's joys as well as its responsibilities.
One is as essential as the other to the rounding-out of
character. The instinct for pleasure is inborn, like the
instinct for food and drink. Slow starvation of
mind and heart sets in when one is bound to conditions
that allow nothing to the lighter side of nature.

Something is wrong with our civilization when
any among us can be deprived of the rejuvenating
forces of enjoyment pure and simple. It is plain to
those who read the New Testament, without prejudice
left over from the days when nothing was religion that
was not gloomy, that the Master set the seal of his
approval upon merrymaking, upon feasting and danc-
ing, in more than one parable.

Nature provides liberally for man's delight. The
universe is full of material for keenest enjoyment.
Even our day of twenty-four hours is the most perfect
possible division of time for proportioned work, sleep
and recreation. The long struggle of certain trades for
eight hours of labor had a sound reason back of it, and
won out because it did. The pity is that its benefits
are still confined to classes and not shared by all alike.

I know that some who judge by externals only
contend that the laboring man's present hours of work
are a positive detriment to his moral nature instead of

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 55

a gain. These surface reasoners see nothing except
that those of dissipated tendencies now have more time
for sensual indulgence than formerly.

But again, it must be said that something needs
revising in our system of dealing with the interests of
the masses, when grosser phases of life continually
show up in a more alluring light than the higher —
when it can be argued that any class of men must needs
be kept at hard work most of their waking hours, to
keep them out of mischief.

Why should this be the case, with so much that is
beautiful in the world to enjoy; and what is the remedy ?
Why should a vulgar concert hall attract greater num-
bers than the church a few doors away ? Certainly
not because man is so degraded at the core that what is
coarse essentially appeals to him more than what is clean
and pure. Were this true, the world would be growing
worse instead of better. And there is ample proof to
the contrary.

As Triune Development comprehends the situa-
tion, purveyors of vice have a shrewd sense of the value
in stage settings as it were — an understanding of the
attraction of brilliant light and warmth, of companion-
ship and good cheer, of music and the opportunity for
spontaneous movement, which many of the good folk
who are seeking to draw souls heavenward by means
which leave the human element out, have not.

That the Salvation Army owes its large following
to innovations which deal with man on his physical side,

56 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

equally with his spiritual, there is no room to doubt.
And signs are not wanting that other sects and societies
are waking up to the importance of considering man's
higher needs in relation to his material environment.
There has been vast improvement in the last few years
along many lines of organized work. But we are only
beginning to understand what should be done and how
to do it.

It is easier to deal with some of the worst phases of
cramping, narrowing conditions peculiar to crowded
centres of life, than with the dull monotony and loneli-
ness of remote country districts, where nothing changes
except the seasons, and social contact is reduced to the
most elemental forms of intercourse. It is instinctive
dread of the awful loneliness of nature when out of touch
with human beings, that keeps many poor wretches
huddled together in crowded tenements, who would
unquestionably be better off so far as material comforts
go, were they to take the oft-repeated advice to settle
in the country.

When, however, a man of the finest resources
within himself is inspired to write —
"But oftentimes he feels
The intolerable vastness bow him down,
The awful homeless spaces scare his soul,"
it is easy to understand why man, a gregarious animal,
will put up with anything just to be in touch with his
kind.

I have been told upon good authority that insanity

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 57

is more prevalent among farmers and their wives who
have plenty to eat, with sunshine and fresh air to spare,
than among the underfed in dark, damp rooms in the
lower quarters of our large cities. Yet no one questions
the value of food, sunlight and ozone in making and
keeping people well and happy. It is all a question
of relative value and proportion, as Triune Develop-
ment contends.

I once asked a middle-aged charwoman who spent
every moment that she could snatch from work or sleep
reading the most exaggerated love-stories, what made
her sacrifice much needed rest for that kind of trash.
"Readin' them stories ain't no sacrifice ter me," she
said. " I jest love 'em ! I'm in heaven when I'm readin'
'bout lords an' ladies an' great folks livin' in palaces,
an' wearin' dimon's big's stars ; an' makin' love all day
long. I go ter sleep seein' it all, real's life. It's a heap
more soothin' than thinkin' I've got ter git up an' go
ter scrubbin' first thing in the mornin'."

Her point of view gave me a new insight into
human hunger for contrasts. She voiced the in-
stinctive desire for even momentary escape from
joyless conditions, which those who lure to moral de-
generacy through drink, drugs and other forms of
sensuality, understand only too well. It is the same
instinct which makes dwellers in the slums eagerly
seize upon the newspaper that prints the most
highly colored accounts of what the millionaires on
the avenues are doing; the same that leads many a

58 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

young man to ruin in gambling-houses and dens of
infamy; and many a sweet girl bound to daily hard
conditions of factory, workshop or store, to seek eve-
ning diversion on the brilliantly lighted highway, without
a thought that its turn leads to the shady by-path, from
which our perverted ideas of righteousness make it
almost impossible for her to return. The same that
tempts household servants to spend their wages in
cheap finery, in effort to look like women who pay
thousands yearly for personal adornment; the same
that crowds street-cars, hotels, cafes and other public
places with overdressed women and girls whose husbands
and fathers are willing to pay for the show which they
have no other places to display.

As well might we tell Nature not to robe herself in
vernal beauty; the sun not to shine, the flowers to
bloom, the birds to sing, as to tell men and women not
to desire joy for its own sake, and seek expression for
its inner promptings in form, color, light, music, mer-
riment and companionship.

But it is by no means on the lower social levels only,
where there is little or no pleasure, that all the suffering
of disproportion can be found. Men and women there
are in plenty surrounded by every luxury, whose hearts
cry out for relief from the emptiness of gaieties which
lack novelty; and the satiety of consciousness that
nothing material is left to long for which their money
will not buy. These people live in houses — not homes —
and must have several to escape the boredom that

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 59

becomes intolerable after a few weeks in any one.
These so-called fortunate ones suffer from the other
extreme of disproportion. They lack the zest of de-
light in productive effort for themselves and others,
an instinct fundamental as life itself.

Nature is an inexorable accountant. She squares
things in her own way — but square them she does
sooner or later. That one class lacks balance and pro-
portion in one direction and another in the opposite,
does not mitigate the disheartening certainty of some-
thing wanting at both extremes. The way of the
world's progress provides work for all to do. Each of
us must needs assume our share of its operations in a
way to prove our stewardship, or pay the penalty in
poverty of spiritual growth. The Law will not tolerate
drones. Wherever it finds one he is shorn of the power
for fulness and joy in the inner satisfactions, which
alone make life worth living.

Service Opens the Heart, Enlarges the Understanding, Increases
Sympathy and Helps Us to Perceive the Good in Human
Nature Under Conditions Apparently Hopeless. Best of All It
Teaches Us the True Meaning of the Fatherhood of God and
the Brotherhood of Man.

Triune Development seeks by means which will
be set forth at length in Triune Brieflets, the Quarterly
Lessons of the Order, to break down false barriers,
which separate man from man in the larger sense.
None of us ever learn how to get the most out of life
until we become inclusive, instead of exclusive. Any
self-centred, narrow-minded person can set up bar-
riers which will keep others off his immediate pre-
serves. But singling one's self out as superior to other
human kind is no gauge of real worth. The human
body requires a variety of nutritious food for con-
stant renewal of wasted tissue; the mind, expansion
through exchange of ideas with men and women
all along life's ranges. Education is more than college
training ; and social culture more than ability to reflect the
manners and class prejudices of any limited set of people.

It takes keen perception, unmeasured charity,
dauntless courage and willingness to both give and re-
ceive help, to make a strong and self -mastered character
in any walk of life. It is as easy to be a failure in all
that counts for true worth at one point in the social scale
as another. Noble hearts full of helpful impulses can be
found everywhere, though oftener perhaps, in the mid-
stream of human interests than at either extreme.

60

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 61

In the initial stages of any work it is not easy to
predict the length to which practical application of its
basic principles will lead — certainly not to force results.
Appeal to public confidence must be made upon the
reasonableness of what is advanced.

The Triune Order of Development is based upon
the Law of Equivalents. Its principles are as sound for
the man of millions as the struggling laborer who finds
it hard to keep a roof over his head. It stands for
proportioned duty to self and balanced helpfulness
to others; for Service in the broad and inclusive
sense taught by the Master, whose career among
men was a constant demonstration of love for the
common good — the only true Socialism. Its teaching
fits one for life. Learning that gives an insight into
Greek and Latin, Science and Mathematics, and yet
leaves a man stranded in physical or moral health, or
both, sometimes with a perverted sense of spiritual re-
sponsibilities, and without ability to relate himself har-
moniously to God or man, or even productively to the
world of affairs, is a poor apology for education.

Men everywhere are struggling to get a right per-
spective of values. They are busy with spiritual and
moral questions; with the rights of wealth and the
sufferings of want; with production and distribution,
equity and justice. And yet with constantly enlarging
concepts of something needing to be done, and the
desire to do it in a way to satisfy the heart's deepest
needs, men in general still lack understanding of what

62 TRIUNE DEVELOPMENT

constitutes either a balanced spiritual or industrial
order. They look outward instead of inward; down
instead of up, and try by precepts to make others
what they are not themselves, which is the crux of
the whole matter. Men must become self-mastered
before they can help others to be so. It is as true
to-day as it ever was that the man who controls his
own spirit is mightier than he who taketh a city.

What should we think of the builder who undertook
to construct one of those marvels of human skill, which
rise forty stories into the air, without seeing to it that
the foundations were deep and secure ? It is even
more impossible to rear lofty character upon any basis
but the bed-rock of proportioned growth.

Human society will never be wiser, nobler or more
just than are the units which combine to make the aggre-
gate. We have yet to learn how to direct the life-forces
from gross gratification to uplifting enjoyment. To know
that a laugh enters as deeply into the scheme of the
whole as a prayer; that dramatic expression of joy,
rhythm and the higher ideals is a vital tonic to health;
that games play as important a part as work, in training
muscles and nerves, eyes, hands, feet, head and heart.

It is hoped that interest in Triune Principles of
Growth will in time make it possible to establish a
central Home for the Triune Order, where body and
character building by methods which leave nothing to
haphazard chance may be seen in practical working.
Such a Home would become a model for others

THE ROAD TO SELF-MASTERY 63

throughout the country — It would stand for ideals that
have never been proven practical, simply because they
have never been fairly tested. For the Balanced
Powers of Spirit, Mind and Body that give a Man
vital Self-mastery, and a Nation Collective Strength,
and a true Solidarity of Human Interests.

Triune Quarterly Brieflets

Lessons of the Triune Order.

SUBJECTS FOR 1910:

WHAT IS SERVICE 1
OUR PART IN THE ALL.
THINGS WORTH STRIVING FOR.
WITH EYES LIFTED.

Membership fee in the Triune Order, and Quarterly
Brieflets, one dollar yearly.

NOV 5 "1909

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